Public Debt Awards Marketing Services Contract To Earle Palmer Brown

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

June 13, 2001

Treasury's Bureau of the Public Debt today announced it awarded a contract for marketing services to Earle Palmer Brown (EPB), a marketing communications agency based in Bethesda, Maryland. The contract is for integrated marketing support for Public Debt's two retail securities programs: U.S. Savings Bonds and TreasuryDirect. The contract award has a maximum value of $34 million over a period of up to five years. It includes a base year plus four option years.

EPB will integrate public relations, promotions, advertising, direct marketing and on-line communications to support the sale of U.S. Savings Bonds and increase public awareness of the importance of saving and investing. The program will promote Treasury's newest saving bond offering, the Series I inflation-indexed savings bond, as well as Series EE bonds.

Additionally, the contract will support marketing of TreasuryDirect, a program that allows investors to buy Treasury bills, notes, and bonds at auction and hold them in accounts with Public Debt. Some 680,000 investors hold $82 billion in securities in TreasuryDirect accounts. TreasuryDirect customers can conveniently buy and reinvest their securities over the Internet, using automated telephone attendants or by mail.

“Our primary goal is to focus our marketing program on increasing the public's consideration of savings bonds as a great way to save money and a preferred choice for consumers looking for a safe, competitive investment,” said Theodore P. Langlois, Public Debt's Acting Executive Director for Savings Bond Marketing. “We believe that improved marketing of our products will increase accurate consumer perceptions of I bonds and EE bonds and, reinforce the value of saving through U.S. Treasury securities.”

“We are looking to increase awareness and use of TreasuryDirect as a convenient alternative for customers looking to buy Treasury securities,” said Langlois. “By offering our securities through direct access via the Internet, we can develop effective long-term customer relationships with a new generation of investors seeking the safety and convenience of U.S. Treasury securities.”

Earle Palmer Brown was awarded the contract this week, and will begin work immediately. The program will be managed out of the agency's Bethesda, Maryland office, drawing on the resources from EPB Public Relations, EPB Advertising and EPBinteractive.